


Don't Forget Who's Takin' You Home

by The_Lake_King



Series: 2021 Valentine's Prompts [14]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Dancing, Growing Old Together, LGBTQ Themes, Love, M/M, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29421015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lake_King/pseuds/The_Lake_King
Summary: Prompt 14. "Happy Valentine's Day."Jimmy gets Thomas to dance with him.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Jimmy Kent
Series: 2021 Valentine's Prompts [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137182
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39
Collections: Well I love you: Valentines for Thomas Barrow





	Don't Forget Who's Takin' You Home

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Save The Last Dance For Me_ by the Drifters, which I highly recommend listening to with this context. It hits differently.

The first time they danced was in Jimmy’s room, in 1923.

“C’mere,” Jimmy demanded, splaying his arms.

“Why?” Thomas asked, swaying slightly. He was tipsy off dancehall punch and was having a hard time keeping a lid on himself. It had been nice, truly, going dancing with Jimmy. Watching the footman go ’round the floor with a different girl on his arm each time made a pretty picture. He had taken a lovely young woman named Beth for a few turns himself. It made him feel normal-adjacent. But it also picked at old wounds, dangling things he could never have in front of his nose.

“’S bad luck, if you don’t. Gotta do the last dance with the person what brought ya. My Mum said. So c’mere.”

“I don’t think that applies to us,” Thomas said carefully. He wondered sometimes if Jimmy knew what saying things like that did to him and said them anyway. It was a cruel thought, and he did his best to dismiss it.

“Don’t be like that, c’mere!” Jimmy insisted, loudly enough that Thomas complied just to shut him up. They should both have been in bed hours ago, if Carson had anything to say about it. Although if he _really_ had anything to say about it, they wouldn’t have gone out at all.

Jimmy let him lead. All of reality condensed into the places where they were connected, narrowing into those small spots of warmth in the cold. They ended up doing a sort of half-arsed two-step around the tiny space, while Jimmy hummed something Thomas didn’t know. Thomas wasn’t sure that Jimmy knew it either. It seemed to be an awfully long song, whatever it was.

When Jimmy finally trailed off, he didn’t step away. Instead, he looped his arms about Thomas’ neck and swayed in the silence, blonde head resting on his shoulder. Thomas tentatively hugged him back, meeting no resistance. He was warm and solid and smelled like cheap cologne and sweat. It hurt so wonderfully. Days could pass, and Thomas wouldn’t let go. Not until Jimmy did. And Jimmy had to know, didn’t he? He had to know that Thomas loved him so fiercely it couldn’t possibly be healthy. He had to know that everything he did was cherished, every time he gave any token of affection was pressed in the pages of Thomas’ memory like a flower. When Jimmy started playing with the short hairs at the base of his skull, he broke.

“What is this?” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut in preparation for a muttered ‘nothin’’ and the warmth of Jimmy’s body becoming one more memory.

“I dunno,” Jimmy said softly. It sounded like the edge of something. “I just…I know I wanna dance with you. And hold you. Is that alright?”

“Yes.” Thomas swallowed and licked his lips. “It’s all alright.” His treacherous heart must be audible from York.

“I’m scared.” He sounded so frightfully young.

“That’s alright too. Sensible, really.”

“Look at me, bein’ sensible.” Jimmy made a noise that Thomas imagined was supposed to pass for a laugh.

Thomas didn’t know what to say to that, so he rubbed little circles into Jimmy’s back, working at all the knots that came from a life in service. He froze when the footman gripped him like his life depended on it and his shoulders started to shake.

“I wanna dance with you,” Jimmy repeated, burying his face in Thomas’ neck. “I wanna dance with you all the time.”

“I’d dance with you whenever you wanted if I could,” he said carefully. It sounded far too much like ‘I love you.’

“I know.” It sounded like ‘I love you too.’ Jimmy nuzzled at him, hot breath making him break out in gooseflesh. “Don’t leave.”

“I’ve got to go to bed sometime, Jimmy.” He forced himself to say it. Nothing was less appetizing in that moment than retreating to his own cold room and leaving Jimmy all alone in whatever state _this_ was. But reality was reality, and this strange soap bubble they were living in would surely burst when it came crashing down.

“Go to bed in here.”

Thomas closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Did Jimmy know what he sounded like? He must. He must know, and he was doing it anyway. “You’re drunk.”

“’M not. Not _very_. You can get up an’ go back in the mornin’ an’ no one’ll know.” Jimmy pulled back enough to look at him, soft and tentative. “Please?”

And when could he ever say no to those crystal-blue eyes?

That was how he found himself lying on Jimmy’s bed in his underclothes while the footman arranged him like an artist’s mannequin. Once satisfied, Jimmy crawled in on top of him, one arm at Thomas’ shoulder, the other stretched out to grasp his hand.

“So we can keep dancin’.” Jimmy murmured.

“In our dreams?” Thomas asked. He didn’t imagine he’d sleep a wink with Jimmy’s warm weight on his chest and that scent on his skin.

“Mm-hm. We’ll be in a big dancehall, drinkin’ champagne and dancin’. And no one’ll say shite about it, except how they’re jealous that we’re the best lookin’ couple.”

Thomas swallowed, with difficulty. “That sounds like a good dream.”

“Meet me there?”

“I'll try.”

…

The first time they danced without fear or regret was in the Papillon, in 1968.

“Mind if I join you?” Theo waved a champagne bottle and two glasses about as he slid into a chair without waiting for an answer. Thomas didn’t mind.

“Who’d you steal that from?”

Theo pulled his best sad face. He had a pinched-ness about him, like all children who grew up in the flash of the Blitz, stunted by scavenging. No long hair and colourful shirts could obscure that kind of thing. He wore tragedy well. “Must you always think so little of me?”

“Only because I’m always proven right.” He accepted the glass, letting his eyes wander over the profusion of paper hearts that hung from the ceiling down to where Jimmy sat at the piano, gesturing enthusiastically about something. His lover was handsome at seventy, with his fashionable suit and his wavy grey hair. He grinned and leaned and snarked the same way he always had, the insouciant young man still alive and well in him, even when he was old enough to be a grandfather to half his audience. They locked eyes across the room, and Jimmy mouthed ‘save me a glass’ before turning back and launching into _I’m Wild About That Thing._

Thomas smiled and drifted in the old song, sipping at his drink. Jimmy was usually a man who dove head-first into the latest thing. He was all about rock and roll these days. But he always played the oldies for Thomas.

“You make me jealous sometimes, y’know.”

“Never be jealous of old people, dear. I’d kill for your knees,” Thomas replied, never taking his eyes off the piano. He could almost _hear_ Theo pouting.

“You know what I meant.”

Thomas rolled his eyes affectionately. He was the only person at the club who didn’t point out to Theo that there were plenty of other men. He knew what it was to want one man, and one man only. “Did I ever tell you that Jimmy hated me for a whole year, once?”

“Oh Jesus Christ, don’t give me _hope_. It’s undignified.”

Thomas chuckled and refilled his glass as Jimmy left the piano in Ron’s capable hands and sauntered over.

“Is that for me?” Jimmy asked, draining the glass before he got an answer. “C’mon.”

“Where are we going?”

“Dancin’.” Jimmy pulled him up against his half-hearted protests. “Don’t be like that, c’mon. I wanna legally dance with you on Valentine’s Day. Humour me.”

Thomas didn’t know how he felt about people cooing over them as they made their way to the dance floor. He supposed any kind of elderly queers were something of a novelty to the young, never mind a packaged set that had been together for forty-five years. They were fixtures at the Papillon, a know story. So much so that they had an assortment of men calling them both ‘uncle.’ It still made him feel strange sometimes, but more often than not it warmed him up.

Ron began a slower version of that Drifters song that Jimmy liked. They had danced so many times, behind closed doors or in this very club. But it felt different, somehow, when Ron sang:

_But don’t forget who’s takin’ you home_

_And in whose arms you’re gonna be_

_So darling, save the last dance for me_

He knew from the look in Jimmy’s eyes that he felt it too. There was something about celebrating the day like everyone else, even if it was limited to this small space. Even though they had to keep themselves quiet, they could have this, right here, right now, without fear of retribution. Neither of them had to feign interest in women, not that either of them had done much of that lately. They could finally stop keeping up the pretense that Jimmy slept in the guest bedroom, not that any of the neighbours had ever bought it. A part of the weight they carried was gone, all the same.

Jimmy pulled them closer, resting their foreheads together as they shuffled as best Thomas could manage. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he murmured, under the music. It sounded like ‘I love you.’

“Happy Valentine’s Day, darlin’.” It sounded like ‘I love you too.’

**Author's Note:**

> Bingo.


End file.
